With heart and soul, the sensitive officer Carl Joseph Trotta is a child of Austria-Hungary: His grandfather, who saved the life of the then-young Franz Joseph I as a soldier, is celebrated as the hero of Solferino in the history books, while his father serves the empire as a civil servant. As the once-powerful Danube monarchy experiences its gradual decline, feelings of melancholy and guilt begin to emerge in the son. Joseph Roth's artfully melancholic novel from 1932 is considered one of the masterpieces of European literature due to its stylistic brilliance.